The orientation file blinked away when I swiped the tablet shut.
Welcome to the sky.
Yeah. Like I ever left.
It was 0558 hours. The hangar lights were still warming up, the air heavy with the sharp stink of ion fuel. I stretched my shoulders to shake off the stiffness. I hadn't been a Cadet for years, but ADA still pushed these "orientation updates" to us like it would change anything. Protocol, they said. Annoying, I said.
Blackbird Division. Not Blackbird-9 like the legends. I was in Blackbird-3 Recon-Strike Wing, which basically meant we got all the escort work no one else wanted and all the blame if anything went wrong. Perfect.
A soft chime buzzed in my ear — mission briefing uploaded. I opened the display while heading for Bay 12.
Operation: WARDEN RUN
Objective: Escort ADA Destroyer Kepler's Edge to Transit Point Gamma.
Cargo: Classified.
Hostile Probability: XN-S05 contact: Medium.
Supplementary Assets: Lucas S. Paige, Ren Calder, Mira Dov.
Launch Time: 0615 hours.
Fifteen minutes. Enough to get ready.
"Paige!" Mira called from across the hangar. She sat on a crate, tying her hair back, flight suit half-zipped. "You look like someone made you read a manual."
"They did," I said, walking under the brighter ceiling panels as my jet came into view.
The Stinger-VX7 waited on its pad, wings folded in, nose angled like it wanted to bite something. She was old, but she was mine.
Ren jogged up, visor on his hip. "Heard the Edge is carrying something big. They didn't even bother pretending it's routine this time."
"Whatever it is," I said, running my hand along the fuselage, "an S-05 will smell it long before we reach Gamma."
"Comforting," he muttered.
I climbed the ladder and dropped into the seat. The cockpit hummed to life beneath me. HUD crystals lit up, scanning for my ID chip. I slid the tablet into its port.
ACE CONFIRMED — PAIGE, LUCAS S.
CALL SIGN — FROST
ACI LINK — PENDING
I closed my eyes for a second and let the sync settle. The jet always felt… cold. Sharp. Focused. Not alive like XN bio-tech, but aware enough to make you respect it.
"Blackbird-3, report when ready," came through comms.
"Frost, ready," I said.
"Evoc, all set," Ren answered.
"Shocker active," Mira added.
The canopy slid shut. The hangar doors started rising.
Welcome to the sky, I thought. Fine.
Let's work.
The mag-clamps released, and the jet rolled forward on the rails. Launch lights strobed down the corridor ahead of me, beating fast like a pulse. Kepler's Edge was already out at sea, waiting for us. Our job was simple: escort the destroyer and get its classified cargo to the Rift line without it sinking. "Classified humanitarian" usually meant something no one wanted to talk about.
"Blackbird-Escort," Control said, "you're green for takeoff. No XN signatures in the area."
Ren snorted. "Which means they'll show up any second."
Mira sighed. "He's impossible."
"Stay focused," I told them. "Clean run. No surprises."
The rails locked us in for full-power launch. Three jets, three engines, three HUD signatures. I pushed down the nerves.
"Launching in three," Control called.
"Two."
"One."
The magnetic catapult fired, and the world blurred.
The ocean spread beneath us twenty minutes later, dark and restless under storm winds. Clouds hung low and heavy. Ambush weather, if I'd ever seen it.
Kepler's Edge appeared on radar — big, slow, and already running deck lights in warning mode.
"Edge actual to Escort," the captain said. "Good to see you. Had some sonar pings earlier. Probably nothing."
"Probably," Ren said. "My favorite word."
"Stay tight," I said. "Wing formation."
We dropped lower, keeping a triangular screen around the ship.
Then the static started — a faint hiss, then a pulse, then something that felt like a vibration in my teeth.
My HUD flickered, then lit up with a warning frame.
ANOMALOUS MASS DETECTED
CLASS: XN-Ω
DISTANCE: 4.1 KM
My stomach dropped. Mira inhaled sharply. "Frost… that's impossible."
Ren tried to make sense of it. "A Breach-Class can't be here. This water isn't deep enough. There's no way—"
The ocean cut him off.
The water ahead of us rose. Not a wave — a mountain stepping out of the sea. Water cascaded off huge plates of dark crimson biometal. Lines of glowing organ-light pulsed under its armor. It just kept rising and rising until it blocked out the horizon.
A Breach-Class. XN-Ω. The kind of monster entire fleets avoided.
Kepler's Edge blasted its alarms. Engines screamed.
I opened my mouth to order a retreat, but the creature moved first.
A single beam of white light shot from its chest and hit Ren's jet straight on. No explosion. The beam just tore through the cockpit and split the aircraft in half. One moment Ren was there. The next he was falling apart in pieces of burning metal.
Mira screamed his name, but he was already gone. I tightened my grip on the throttle and forced myself to keep breathing.
"Shocker, stay high! Edge, break right—"
The leviathan dove and came up again, its massive arm slamming into Kepler's Edge with enough force to lift the ship out of the water. The destroyer rolled, cracked, and split open along the middle. Fire swallowed the deck.
A second beam shot past my canopy, close enough to burn out half my displays. My jet shook violently.
"Frost—pull up!" Mira shouted.
I tried but the controls fought me. A shockwave hit us hard, and the jet bucked sideways. Warning alarms screamed. My right engine lit up in flames, and something behind my jet tore loose.
The jet spun as clouds and ocean traded places in the glass. I tried to steady it, but the controls wouldn't respond.
"I'm losing it," I muttered.
Through static, I heard a voice — Mira or the Edge, I wasn't sure.
"…Frost… abort… abort…"
Then the ocean filled the windshield.
The jet hit hard. Cold water blasted through the cracks instantly. The cockpit spun, and everything went blue.
The last thing I felt was the sinking weight dragging me down, deeper and deeper, until everything became black.